The Frozen Prince (The Beast Charmer #2) - Maxym M. Martineau Page 0,129

headdress. My whole body froze. If ever there was an opening to try to break his bond, it was now. Maybe his concern for Lola’s life would be enough. The rosewood light around me radiated with renewed strength, and I brought my hand down and rested my palm on the Vrees’s snout. White eyes locked with mine.

“You don’t have to do this.”

Somewhere behind me, Kost screamed, and then there was a loud thump, like that of a body falling to the floor. I didn’t have the chance to turn and investigate. The Vrees held all my attention.

He huffed. Static built again until I could hear nothing but the crackle of electricity. I could just barely decipher my name shouted at the top of Kost’s lungs. How he had the ability to break away long enough from Noc to search for me was a mystery I didn’t have time to investigate. The Vrees studied me without moving, sending more waves of electricity racing down my arms. They singed my hair and left trailing welts, but I held strong. I waited. I believed.

Yazmin had only just tamed the Vrees. She was using dark magic and forcing him to kill another beast. A creature so powerful, so revered even by the goddess herself, wouldn’t want to be in tamed by someone like our Crown.

Then the mist around us suddenly evaporated, and a gentle warmth rushed through me. All threats of electricity disappeared. A soft humming filled the Vrees’s throat, and suddenly he began to diminish in size. He stopped when his back reached my midthigh, and the electric ball inside his rib cage pulsed like a heartbeat. When he glanced up at me, his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. Bond broken.

And a new one forged in its place.

The beast realm groaned open, and the Vrees rubbed his head along the back of my knees before disappearing in a flux of rosewood light. Finally deeming it safe, Lola followed him into the realm to heal.

Yazmin’s lips were parted, and she stared at me with unveiled rage. “How?” Behind her, Gaige lay motionless in a heap, beast gone—presumably back to the realm—and I stilled. I stared at him until I glimpsed the shaky rise and fall of his chest. Alive. I let out a tight breath.

Glowering, I turned on Yazmin. I didn’t know exactly how I broke the Vrees’s bond with her, but the reason shone clear. “Not all beasts want to kill.”

She snarled, and her gaze flicked behind me before returning to my face. “No matter. Your time is up.”

I made a move toward her, but Noc appeared before me in a vortex of shadows. He caught me by the throat and lifted me into the air. My hands jerked to his wrists, fingers digging into cold flesh. He stared without seeing me. The whites of his eyes had shifted to an enflamed red, heightening the ice-blue of his irises.

My anam-cara was gone.

Just like he had outside of Wilheim, he locked us away in an unbreakable, snarling mess of shadows. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the muffled shouts of Calem, Oz, and Kost. They’d never be able to break through, but maybe I could. Channeling power into my hand, I tried to douse the space in rosewood light. To break the spell that held my love captive, just like before. But the man standing before me, the one with his fingers wrapped tight around my neck, wasn’t my lover anymore. He was someone else entirely. And the air in my lungs was rapidly decreasing, and there wasn’t enough time to try to bring Noc back.

I was going to break my promise after all.

My extremities started to tingle, and numbness tracked into my arms and legs. My rosewood light went out like a flame. I vaguely registered that I was kicking him, and that each swing was less and less effective. The heaviness of it all was suffocating. Darkness flared in my peripheral vision, and my hands went slack. Painful pressure around my neck squeezed the last bit of air from my lungs, and I sputtered.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Thick and absolute darkness, so unlike the shadows he commanded, burned around me until he was the only thing left in view. Until it was just his shock-white hair and then nothing but his eyes. My heart gave one last pitiful thud.

And then everything went silent.

Thirty-Two

Noc

The red haze that had dominated my senses for so long lifted